Thursday, January 15, 2009

Stansbury reflects on Foster's 42

We all remember what happened the last time Vanderbilt and Mississippi State met on the hardwood.

Shan Foster's magical 42-point effort -- which included hitting nine three-pointers in a row -- lifted the Commodores to an unforgettable 86-85 overtime victory. It will go down as one of the greatest single-game performances in Memorial Gym history.

The Commodores and Bulldogs will square off for the first time since that memorable night, this time in Starkville for a 7 p.m. CT tipoff on Saturday.

"After the season's over and you reflect a little bit, that may have been as tough of a loss as I've ever had in my 10 years as a coach. It was 10 years last year as a coach. I've been in some tough losses, but the reason it was so tough is we were playing on such a big stage, two really good teams, senior night at Vanderbilt, and we were both top-25 teams at that point, and we were playing basically to win that to go into our last game with a chance to win the overall SEC championship.

"Our team really played well, but that performance is absolutely the best single-handed, one game performance I've ever been a part of that Shan Foster put on from the 16-minute mark on. Again, I remember it perfectly, he was 9-for-9 in that second half. Every shot he made it was a crucial shot, a big shot, a big play at certain times of the game. He just made shots to keep them in it. It was come from behind, keep them in it over and over and over, and the game ended just the way... we were up two, shot clock running out and basically again Foster jumps up from about 25-28 feet contested and guarded to win the game on senior night. A huge stage, a huge game and again the best single game performance I've ever witnessed. I remember it very well."